


Growing a Little Differently

by sapphirebluerubyredroses



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: F/M, Growing Up, Mild Cursing, TW: suicidal thoughts, Trans Character, pining eddie, pretty much just did whatever I wanted with the existing storyline and my own, something I had to get down but I actually like it, trans!eddie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 08:44:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20945549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphirebluerubyredroses/pseuds/sapphirebluerubyredroses
Summary: The more subtle difference between him and the others was that everyone knew how to be the person they were meant to be early on, however abstract that was in middle school......Or where Eddie is trans and the hardships that come along with his revelation.





	Growing a Little Differently

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if this seems like a little bit of a mess, but I started with one scene in my head that I wanted to happen and built around it. I've been working on this for two weeks, and am very excited to introduce it.
> 
> Let me know if something is way off the mark or not, and possibly some advice on writing trans characters.
> 
> Thanks and enjoy!

Eddie had never been like the other Losers, especially not Beverly. The most obvious difference being that he was a boy and Beverly was a girl. That's always the most obvious thing, but the little things were really what mattered.

The more subtle difference between him and the others was that everyone knew how to be the person they were meant to be early on, however abstract that was in middle school.

Even when they were young and only Richie and Eddie had been friends, Richie knew that he liked both girls and boys. Eventually, when they were older, he came out to the Losers to not that much surprise. He knew that he liked Eddie as more than a friend long before Eddie ever realized he liked boys.

Eddie though, Eddie had never really been sure why he wasn't like the others until he woke to a face smeared with makeup one night. Having fallen asleep first at the weekly Losers' sleepover, he'd been fair game for the consequences. They'd all decided on them before hand, and Bev had hauled her makeup bag with her for that eventuality.

Stumbling into the bathroom, Eddie glanced at his face in the mirror after peeing and only because he thought there was a woman in the room with him.

Bev and the others had pulled out all the stops on him. Red lipstick coated his lips, smudged at the corners of his mouth from sleep. Blush darkened his cheeks. Mascara had turned his stubby eyelashes into thick feathers. Dark eyeshadow lined his eyes.

He was beautiful in a way he thought only women could be, and for the first time he realized he always wanted to feel like this. Looking like a girl felt right, it felt like the only right thing besides being with the Losers since defeating Pennywise. Something that was always gnawing at his heart settled down as he stared at this other him.

It all started to make a little more sense. The reason he loved Bev so much, besides Bev just being Bev, was simply because he wanted to be just like her.

He reached out careful fingers, mouth parted, and pressed them to the lips of his mirror self.

…..

Eddie's discomfort only grew as they all got older and he became more conscious of his differences.

He started to notice the way his eyes strayed towards Richie whenever he raised his arms to stretch or when they're eyes met as they all laughed wildly. He noticed how he hadn't been able to tear his eyes away from Bev when she'd changed her shirt in front of him after a particularly muddy game of hide and seek.

They were thirteen and her bra was pale pink. Her nipples were hard and pointed against the soft fabric, her breasts larger than before. They pressed against the fabric, bubbling over the edge of the cups.

She sighed dramatically, tugging at her straps without any care that Eddie was sitting on her bed watching. “I have to buy a new bra already. My mom didn't tell me my boobs were just going to keep growing and growing and growing.” She rolled her eyes and glanced over at him, awkward and uncomfortable with his hands pressed between her knees. “Have weird things been happening to you too? Like any of the things they talked about in health class?”

Of course they had, but he couldn't and wouldn't talk to her about those things. He couldn't talk to any of the Losers about his changes. He couldn't tell Bev that the only thing he could imagine while watching her fuss had been how it would feel to have breasts. He wanted to be going through the same changes she was.

He wouldn't tell her that he didn't know what to do with the thick coarse hair that was beginning to grow from his naval down and everywhere else too, or how he tried to forget about waking up hard every morning, or how thinking about Richie's mouth made him hard too. Despite being best friends, there were so many things he couldn't talk to the others about.

He couldn't tell them about how he dreamed about being a girl, hair long and flowing, breasts full and heavy, a skirt brushing against his legs. He couldn't tell them about how in those dreams, Richie was always tracing a hand over his shoulder and breasts and thighs. In some of those dreams, he slid his fingers beneath Eddie's skirts as he pressed him back into the bed.

He couldn't tell them because he didn't know what those things meant. He couldn't tell them because he felt that it would mean the end of what they all had together.

Who wanted to be friends with a boy who wanted to be a girl?

They'd been okay with Richie liking boys, but he knew that was only because he also liked girls. He was a mostly normal boy with an added interest.

Richie wasn't like Eddie who only like boys, who wanted to be one of the girls Richie liked.

No, Eddie wasn't like any of the others.

…..

The endless years of puberty were weird and awkward for all of the Losers, but they were worse for Eddie. He found himself in bouts of depression where breaking his own skin seemed to be the only way to let everything that crawled beneath his skin out. His anxiety and asthma only got worse as the days wore on.

The Losers made it better, but they didn't help make it easier.

They never really stopped getting bullied, but growing into their bodies seemed to help turn the gazes into something different. Bev only grew more and more beautiful with each passing month. Richie sprouted like a weed, towering over the others, all gangly limbs and handsome face. Ben started to grow vertically instead of horizontally, his girth distributed over his frame and sluicing off as he began to run mile after mile. Mike grew bulkier, filling out his shirts and his frame casting an intimidating figure. Bill started to look more and more like his dad which wasn't a bad thing, his thick auburn hair shiny as he grew tall and lean. Even Stan grew tall and boy-next-door-handsome, someone that all the girls wanted to bring home to meet their family with his curls and sweet smile.

And Eddie?

Well, Eddie didn't have his father to base what he'd look like off anymore. His mom kept those pictures locked away most days, only bringing out a few on holidays and other special occasions.

Eddie began to curl further and further in on himself. He grew taller, like everyone, but he was always the shortest. Even Bev shot towards supermodel heights. His frame remained wiry and thin, almost anorexic when he couldn't make himself eat for days at a time. He shoved down every bit of himself that yearned for curves and long hair and softer features. After realizing what he wanted, he became very good at hiding his true self. So good, in fact, that Bill and Richie being his oldest friends couldn't tell.

When he was at school, he wore slacks and button-ups and cardigans because that's what his mother bought him, trading out his little kid clothes for what she said was “more sophisticated”. He thought he looked like Stan, and he convinced himself that he liked it that way.

When he was with the Losers, he wore shorts from when he was younger that were just a little too short to be modest because he liked the way Richie's eyes lingered on him.

When he was alone at home -really alone- he pulled out the shirt and skirt Bev had forgotten at his house after a sleepover that he'd neglected to give back. He curled his hair with his mother's curling iron and smeared shoplifted lipstick across his lips and stared at himself in the mirror and longed for a different body, a different universe.

He yearned and craved and denied.

Most of all, he never talked about how he felt. Secrecy was his constant companion.

…..

Fourteen was the worst year of Eddie's adolescent life, the one where he thought nonstop about what it would be like to just let himself sink into darkness. It would be easier, right? To just stop fighting and give up, right? He would certainly stop hurting.

That's what he thought for a whole year as Richie cycled through girl after girl after girl and secretly through boys who wanted to experiment. While Bev, Bill and Ben danced around each other, going through relationships of their own to ignore their feelings. While Stan and Mike had their first girlfriends. Each of them brought their plus one to hangout with the Losers as long as they weren't going to the club house.

Except for Eddie.

No one ever questioned it, and Eddie never brought it up.

Fourteen was the year that Richie made out for the first time, and not soon after, had sex for the first time far before any of the others. That was the year that Richie's stories took on a raunchier turn with details to back up the experiences.

That was the year that Eddie held an orange bottle of pills in his hands more nights than not. Sometimes he sobbed. Sometimes he stared blankly into the distance. Sometimes he opened the bottle and counted out the pills and made calculations on how may it would take. Sometimes he would get a glass of water and line the pills up on the edge of his desk and urge himself to just do it.

Without fail, every time he held that bottle, Richie was at his window tapping on the glass. Eddie would scramble to hide the pills and the bottle, and then Richie would shimmy through the window. He'd have blooming bruises or a drunk smile or pupils blown wide.

They'd lay on his bed together on their backs, staring at the ceiling. Sometimes they'd talk. Sometimes they wouldn't talk at all. Always, they'd link hands and fall into each others presence.

They never talked about where Richie got the bruises or why there was always bandages on Eddie's arms. They never talked about Richie's relationships or Eddie's lack there of.

Richie never thanked Eddie for letting him into his safe space because they both felt safer with each other than anyone else. Eddie never thanked Richie for stopping himself from doing something he couldn't reverse and ending the moments they would have together.

…..

Being dragged into a relationship -happily so- made everything easier, made everything better. They were fifteen and horny and so obvious that Stan actually yelled at them for being annoying because they just wouldn't give in.

They were fifteen and drunk on each other.

Fifteen was the happiest year of Eddie's teenage life.

That was the year Eddie learned how to kiss and learned that being physical with Richie made him nauseous and exhilarated at the same time. That was the year that Eddie lost his virginity, and it was wonderful and terrible at the same time.

Richie was careful and sweet and tender. Eddie was responsive and eager and pushy.

Once Richie was asleep though and Eddie was left to his own thoughts, he'd had to run to the bathroom and vomit. He didn't understand. He didn't think he wanted to understand.

After that night, he was careful. He loved to give everything to Richie, making him groan and cry out, but he never let Richie repay in kind. He always remembered the nausea, and he always made excuses for why he didn't want to.

Eventually, fifteen ended and so did their relationship.

All because Eddie couldn't bare to be touched so sweetly in a body he couldn't stand.

…..

Sixteen was bad for all of the Losers. They had grown apart and factions had been formed around Eddie and Richie respectively.

Sixteen was bad for friendships, but it was good for discoveries. Eddie spent most of sixteen working and saving up money and researching what someone like him was called. He discovered that he was transgender and everything he had ever felt was natural. He learned that the confusion was normal. He discovered that there were surgeries that could be performed and famous people that were like him.

Eddie finally told Bev and Ben one drunken night everything he had found and everything he had ever felt through the years. They had looked at each other knowingly, like everything finally made sense with those small pieces of information.

Then sixteen got better. They convinced Eddie to tell the other. With his closest secrets in the open, the Losers were finally brought back together. Rather than feeling raw and exposed, he felt absolved.

Richie told Eddie he understood and that he was sorry he'd only been thinking of himself. Eddie told Richie he was sorry for the way he'd treated him and that he hadn't trusted him enough. They reconciled, but they couldn't go back to what they had been.

Richie was more careful with his hands from then on as if Eddie was made of porcelain, but Eddie didn't push him for more. He always craved what they'd had, but he knew that he'd only destroy what they had by jumping too soon. Either way, he didn't think he could handle more.

He needed to come to terms with himself and his body before he could have Richie again.

They were sixteen and they were friends again, and that was good enough for now.

…..

Seventeen brought on bigger changes. The Losers pushed him into little rebellions. Wear a bra beneath his t-shirt. Wear girl's underwear when he didn't have P.E. Wear subtle touches of makeup that wouldn't be noticeable, but made him feel pretty. Straighten his hair and wear a skirt when they all went camping on the weekends. Enjoy himself in every way he could.

Ben was the one who suggested they come up with a new name for him instead of 'Edward'. No one ever called him by his given name, but it was the “principle of that matter” Ben said. They all agreed that his nickname would stay the same, but his name would be different. Even if no one else knew it, they would.

Ben was also the one that suggested they start using female pronouns to refer to Eddie.

Richie was the one who decided on his new name. “Edana,” he said, eyes soft as he stared at Eddie across the fire, “It would suit you.”

His face had gone pink, but he'd loved the sound of the name. “Edana”. There was something in the name that spoke to him, or maybe it was simply that Richie liked it. He didn't care. “I like it, but I think I'm going to need some time for the pronouns. This is all still kind of... new,” Eddie told them. He didn't know if he could handle appearance changes, a new name and new pronouns all at the same time.

He smiled when they hummed in agreement, dropping the hem of his skirt.

He wouldn't officially change his pronouns until he was eighteen, but none of them pushed him. He loved them for that.

…..

Eighteen brought on Eddie's first experienced with lingerie and toys.

Bev dragged her into the adult entertainment store several cities over, grinning as her face grew dark with blush. Everything in the store was so dark, but also bright and pink and red. There was so much to look at.

Bev caught her staring longingly at the lacy lingerie pieces, imagining slipping into the fabric. She imagined how Richie would react if they were still together and she was buying this for him as well. She ran careful fingers over white lace panties and a matching garter belt.

Resting her chin on Eddie's shoulder, Bev whispered, “You should get it. You'd look beautiful.”

Eddie was shaking her head before she could finish speaking. An incredulous laugh spilled off her tongue. “I could never. It's too pretty. And it's not... made for someone like me.”

“That's complete bullshit,” Bev said amiably, rifling through the sizes. She found Eddie's size and shoved it at her chest. “Buy it, Eddie. You're not going to regret it.”

Staring down at the fabric in her hands, Eddie continued to shake her head. She hung the garments back up in resignation even as Bev stared her down.

After they were already on their way home, Bev shoved a small black bag into her chest. She was grinning as she said, “Don't say I've never done anything for you. Open it when you get home.”

Eddie was far from surprised when she opened the bag and found the folds of white lace. Beneath were several other objects that brought red to her cheeks just thinking of their implications.

She shoved the bag into the bottom drawer of her dresser with the clothes from when she was a kid, pulling it out to look at but never to put on at least twice a week for two straight months.

On a night like many others, she waited alone for the other Losers to get off work so they could head down to the Barrens and get sloshed. It would be one of their last weekends together before they all scattered for college. Well, less scattered and more spread.

Ben was going to UC Santa Barbara. Bill was going to UC New York. Bev was headed off to San Francisco, and even though she said it was because San Fran had a better designer program, they all knew it was to be closer to Ben. Mike was going to fulfill his dream of going to Florida by taking a stint at UC Florida. Eddie and Stan had gotten into Stanford together, somehow, someway. Richie was making his way down to UC San Diego.

None of them had decided to stay in Maine, and Eddie thought that spoke about them as people more than their choices in college.

Bill and Mike may have been the only ones on the East Coast, but Eddie knew that a few hours was still going to feel like a few centuries between the rest of them.

Still, her mind drifted away from the anticipation of college and the others, and instead back to the bag in her drawer. It called her name as it did more and more often night after night. She glanced away from her comic to the drawer before tearing them away. This went on for nearly ten minutes before she finally groaned and rolled from the bed.

She crawled across the floor, pulling out the bag and peering inside. For the first time since smuggling the bag into her house, she pulled the garments out and held them gentle. She rubbed the fabric between uncharacteristically steady fingers.

She huffed out a sigh. “Fine, Bev, I'll put them on. Fuck. I know you've been the one nagging me,” she said to the empty air.

It took her longer than she thought it should have to assemble all of the thin straps and clips and lace to hold her properly. The barely too big cups hung loose on his front. '_Right_,' she thought despairingly, '_This wasn't made for someone like me, so of course it's not going to fit right_.' As she plucked at the top of the garter belt, she continued to stare at herself. She forced the thought from her mind, squashing them like her therapist had taught her.

She was beautiful in her own strange way. She knew she was. She hadn't always, but years of being friends with the Losers had taught her that much. She was still the shortest out of all of them with thin pixie like features and slim shoulders and hips. Her waist dipped in slightly, just barely disrupting how square she'd grown to be. Over time, she knew her body would continue to change, but she could take those changes one at a time.

Even now, she could see those changes on the horizon. The shadow of facial hair trying very valiantly to become known. And with hours of playing lacrosse -something she mainly had done to piss off her mother, but also for the looks of surprise and adoration it conjured in the Losers- her body had become toned and strong in a way that other girl's didn't. She was no longer the little boy, pale and asthmatic, who was scare of anything that wasn't '_normal_'. She wasn't the little boy that had been scared of a fucking clown.

She was a young woman still growing into herself and who knew she still had a long journey ahead of her.

“Bev was right,” she whispered, fingering the lower edge of the panties.

“Eddie, yo, we gotta go! We're going to be late!”

Eddie startled, heat flushing her entire body as Richie's voice flooded the room. Had she forgotten to lock the door after her mom left for work? Did Richie climb through the kitchen window that had never closed right again? Wait. No. All the Losers had keys to each others houses just in case.

_'Wait! Richie is in my house and I'm_-'

“Eds, darling, I know you're home! Everyone is off work! Didn't you get my text? Let's go, girl!”

His voice was close, too close, and she looked around the floor frantically for something -anything!- to cover herself with. She was considering ripping the covers from her bed when her bedroom door slammed open.

“There you are-” Richie stuttered into silence as he took Eddie in. They were speechless for several long heartbeats. Richie's face morphed with a new emotion for each moment that passed.

Eddie couldn't decide if any of them were good or bad.

She spluttered as Richie closed the door, trying to cover herself, but her hands were trembling too much to pull on the shorts she'd been wearing. “This is- It's not- Look, Richie, please don't tell- I know you won't- I'll leave you alone-”

Richie locked the door. He closed the distance between them in three easy strides, and she was sure he was going to hit her just like all the other guys who suspected something strange about her.

Because that's what happened to girls like her. Even when it was their best friends. She'd read enough to know that much.

She'd never thought Richie would ever really hurt her before, and the thought was discomforting. They'd gotten into scuffles and horsed around which usually ended with someone having a few bruises and even a bloody nose on one memorable occasion, but this...

Well, she wasn't sure. And being afraid of her best friend sat like a lead weight in her stomach.

She flinched. “Richie-”

“Eds, just shut the fuck up for once, wouldya?” Richie cupped her face in large, warm hands so tenderly that Eddie thought she would die from the shock alone. “You're fucking beautiful, Eddie. Edana. Do you know that? I've always thought so, but I could never tell you seriously. Because I was a coward, and so much had happened between us. But you are. And I've regretted every day since I lost you.” He leaned down, pressing a kiss to her forehead. He pulled her tightly against his chest. “I wish I'd been smarter back then. It's been hell watching you grow up from the sidelines. You don't have anything to fear from me.”

She wanted to laugh and make a joke, break the seriousness of the atmosphere, but she couldn't. The laughter was trapped in her chest. She could barely breath.

They stood together for untold minutes. Richie's face was pressed into the top of her head. Eddie's nose was pressed into his chest.

She inhaled him greedily.

“I don't get it,” she whispered, not expecting him to hear her which, of course, he did.

“What don't you get?”

A new wave of heat flared through Eddie, but since he'd already heard her, she pressed forward. He'd just bother her until she told him anyway. “How you can like me knowing what your know. How you can still want to be with me.”

Pulling back and holding her at arm's length, Richie stared at her before a beaming smile broke out across his face. “Eds, how long have we known each other? I'd love you whether you were a boy or girl, and not because I'm bisexual. That is completely besides the point. If anything, I'm Eddie-sexual.”

Rolling here eyes, she pulled further away from him. “Beep beep, Richie.”

He laughed, but quickly sobered again. “I'm serious, Eds. As long as you're happy, I'm happy. You want to be a girl. That's amazing. I'll help you anyway I can. You want to be with someone else? Provided they're not asshole to you, I'll stand back and let you be with them without being an ass myself.” Eyes never leaving hers, he whispered, “I just want you to be happy whether I'm in the picture or not, but I will always love you and want the best for you.”

Eddie's throat was tight with emotion as she stared at him. Richie. Her Richie. Her Richie who would never hurt her, not on purpose at least. Her Richie who was almost never serious. Her Richie that had always been there even when they couldn't look each other in the eye. She felt so selfish to have him, but not have anything to give him in return.

“Richie,” she croaked, the building heat in her eyes spilling over her lashes.

“Hey now,” Richie said quickly, stepping close again and wiping his thumbs beneath her eyes, “No crying. This is a no tears zone.”

“I hate you so much,” she sniffled even though she meant the opposite, falling into him for the first time in three years.

She could feel Richie grinning into her hair. “No you don't. You love me.”

…..

Nineteen was the best year of Eddie's life even though she only had Stan physically with her. Finally, she was out of Maine and away from her smothering mother. Finally, she could be who she was born to be every day of the year and be with who she wanted to be.

Richie and Eddie spoke every night and stayed together every other weekend.

She began taking hormones, scheduled appointments to start looking into surgery. She'd done all the research, talked to her therapist. She knew the risks and the chances someone might not take kindly to her, but she also knew the rewards. She knew she wanted to be a woman, and nothing was going to keep her from that goal.

Every month, the West Losers all got together and called the East Losers, Mike and Bill, who came together to do that same. Class was interesting in the least, if not invigorating. For their first Christmas as college students, they all pitched in to buy Mike and Bill tickets to California rather than going home because it would be cheaper.

That, and no one was quite ready to go back to Derry, Maine.

Just before Christmas, Eddie used the money she'd saved since she was sixteen -which was a modest enough sum, if she did say so- to get her top surgery. The only one who knew was Stan who helped her through the recovery and fielded questions from the others, but mainly from Richie.

She went three weeks without seeing Richie face to face.

When they all convened, together for the first time in more than half a year, Richie began to cry with the widest grin plastered across his face. “You are so fucking beautiful,” he told her.

The others seemed taken aback at first, for the first time confronted with physical evidence of Eddie's true self, but happy for her all the same.

“I think I've been planning this all along,” Eddie explained before they could ask, wiping tears from Richie's face, “I wasn't sure when I first started my research, but I knew for sure as soon as we left Derry. I think I've been ready for a long time, but leaving Derry really nailed it home.”

“That's amazing, Eddie. We're so proud of you and so happy for you,” Bev said, teary eyed and red nosed as she leaned on Ben.

“D-d-did you ever t-tha-think you were going to get to this pa-pa-point?” Bill asked, smiling at her.

Eddie shook her head. “No, but I'm happy I didn't give up. There were a lot of times I thought about giving up, but you guys reminded me every time of what was really important to me. I wouldn't have made it here without all of you.”

All of the Losers grinned widely.

“So,” Mike started, breaking the reverie, “What are you going to do now?”

Before Eddie could start explaining the complexities of having bottom surgery, Richie interrupted, “She's going to marry me.”

Rolling her eyes, but smiling just as widely as the others as they laughed, she said, “I don't remember agreeing to that, but if you want my hand, you're going to have to ask properly.”

Richie's smile was blinding. “I didn't hear a no, but duly noted.”

…..

Nineteen began the rest of her life, and the happiest years of her life.


End file.
